


who controls the present controls the past

by paradoxikay



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, another successful repair by the plot hole filling committee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7741282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradoxikay/pseuds/paradoxikay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard's past history with Cerberus has the potential to destroy everything the Lazarus Project was formed to create; luckily, there's a solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who controls the present controls the past

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: well if Bioware wants to just awkwardly dance around the whole problem with Sole Survivor Shepard playing nice with Cerberus I guess I'll just have to create a reason for that, now won't I.
> 
> I wrote this back in 2012 and most of my knowledge of Mass Effect lore seems to have been left in 2012, so I don't know how canon-compliant this is... but I like the writing, so I'm rescuing it from obscurity in the depths of my Tumblr.

The body on the table bears no resemblance to the person it once was - it hardly even looks _human_. But underneath the tubes and monitors and healing skin grafts is a person, one who lives and breathes by certain machine-assisted definitions of both. It’s both a triumph and a miracle.

A pity, then, that Miranda does not believe in miracles, or triumphs she can’t see with her own eyes. Pumping some semblance of life back into a corpse is only half the challenge, and the other half can’t be measured in crisp clean numbers on a screen.

To know whether the Lazarus Project has accomplished anything at all, she needs more data. She needs to look this pathetic heap of flesh and cybernetics in the eye and see for herself that Commander Shepard is still inside.

 

–

Wilson keys in a few med adjustments with more force than strictly necessary, and an amount of vitriol the keypad certainly hasn’t earned. He doesn’t see the point in this little exercise, as he’s made all too clear. Luckily for Miranda, he doesn’t have to - and the person who does shares Miranda’s point of view.

“She’s not getting enough oxygen. She shouldn’t be off the ventilator so soon -”

“And the more time you waste _complaining_ about it, the longer she’ll have to breathe on her own. Wake her up.”

Miranda isn’t expecting to have a proper conversation. Shepard’s much too drugged for that; otherwise she would likely pass out immediately from pain, or hurt herself trying to struggle. But Miranda doesn’t need her at her best. She just needs _something_ , some spark of life or recognition, something that _proves_ beyond doubt that the Lazarus Project has truly accomplished the impossible.

On the table, Shepard stirs, sucks in a labored breath, and opens her eyes.

“Please try to stay calm.” Miranda, of course, is the very image of calm, at least on the surface, and if her heart is beating almost as fast as Shepard’s - well, she’s not the one hooked up to the monitors. “You were in a very bad accident, Shepard. My name is Miranda Lawson. I’m taking care of you.”

For an agonizing moment Shepard only stares dully at the ceiling, not even bothering to avert her eyes from the blinding lights above her. Then she lets her head roll to the side, frowning with effort as she focuses on Miranda’s face.

“There was… an accident,” she rasps.

“Yes. The Normandy was destroyed. Do you remember?”

She nods, and though Miranda remains perfectly composed, inside she is ecstatic.

Wilson is no doubt eager get their patient sedated again, but Shepard’s vitals are steady and Miranda isn’t quite ready to watch her slip under again. She drifts her fingers through Shepard’s line of sight and takes great pleasure in watching her track them, sluggish but definitely aware. Finally she turns to Wilson, signalling him to sedate Shepard again.

That’s when Shepard lurches up from the table and _screams_. “No!”

“I told you this was stupid, Miranda, I told you she wasn’t ready -”

“Be quiet!” She leans over Shepard, slipping an arm under her shoulders and easily holding her still; Shepard tries to pull away, even untangles an arm from the snarl of tubes and wires to push against Miranda’s chest, but she barely even has the strength to move. “Shepard, it’s all right. You’re safe. You’re going to go back to sleep now -”

“No!” She fights against the sedative, too, and does a remarkable job of it for someone so weak. But she can’t hold out for long, and she slumps into Miranda’s grasp, eyes losing focus and drifting shut. “I won’t… won’t let you… Cerberus _bastards_ …”

–

“I don’t understand,” Miranda says later, pacing the length of the room and back, blind to the brilliance of the dying sun behind her. “She’s come to blows with Cerberus before, but why such a violent reaction? It isn’t logical, it isn’t _like_ her -”

It’s then that she remembers, not so much putting the pieces together as stumbling across a puzzle Shepard must already have solved. She encountered a scientist on Ontarom, killed him, her report had said, for crimes that didn’t deserve the mercy of a trial; the nature of Cerberus is such that Miranda doesn’t have the details, but she knows enough.

“Akuze,” she breathes, and the Illusive Man inclines his head in slight agreement, like he was waiting for her to find an answer he already knew.

–

“The Lazarus Project, the program that rebuilt you… it’s funded and controlled by Cerberus.”

Circumstances being what they were, Miranda can forgive Jacob for a stubborn moment of honesty - and she believes him when he tells her that Shepard showed no sign of recognition. But she still wishes she could have been there to see the blank look in Shepard’s eyes, the absolute proof that the Lazarus Project’s final gamble payed off.

“She said ‘who’re they?’. That’s it, Miranda. I’m not holding out on you, I swear.”

“I believe you, Jacob.”

She touches her chest, where the bruises have long since faded, and smiles. Of course she believes him. Shepard wouldn’t be nearly so… _compliant_ , if he weren’t telling the truth.

It’s no control chip. But it’s not a bad substitute, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always very welcome! You can also find me on Tumblr at [akameniseis](akameniseis.tumblr.com).


End file.
